


suspended, still

by kalypsobean



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bloodplay, Community: spnspringfling, Dubious Consent, Knifeplay, M/M, Mark of Cain, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 14:00:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3653049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean likes knives, always has. Sam has known this since he was small, since before Alastair took his brother apart and put him back together wrong, since Castiel ripped the scabs off and forced Dean to embrace it, to stay unhealed, losing the last hold he had on humanity.<br/>Sam tried to ignore it; he even got away from it, but he fell back in, all the barriers he'd thrown up crumbled and smashed down until Dean is all that's left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	suspended, still

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VyperDD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VyperDD/gifts).



> For vyperdd as part of [spnspringfling 2015](http://spnspringfling.livejournal.com).

Dean likes knives, always has. Sam has known this since he was small, since before Alastair took his brother apart and put him back together wrong, since Castiel ripped the scabs off and forced Dean to embrace it, to stay unhealed, losing the last hold he had on humanity. 

Sam tried to ignore it; he even got away from it, but he fell back in, all the barriers he'd thrown up crumbled and smashed down until Dean is all that's left.

The First Blade fits Dean's hand like it was made for him, and Sam no longer has the strength to be afraid.

 

"With Cain gone, I have no choice but to control it," Dean says, his teeth grinding and eyes narrowed. But it's there, in the shaking of Dean's hands and the pale waxy skin even though he's eating more, drinking more, and spends hours in their jerry-rigged gym, sending punching bags flying. Sam can see it; Dean's need for blood, for violence, never leaves him. It's under Dean's skin, twisting the pieces back together and forming out of them a creature that's not quite human, made for a longer and hardier life, for strength. Dean's knuckles never stay scratched for long, now, and Sam's seen the unmarked skin under the stained gauze they go through by the roll on hunts.

 

Sometimes Sam can't sleep for remembering the carnage Dean's wrought; his dreams are of interchangeable rooms carpeted with bodies and blood, Dean kneeling in the middle, head down, face and hands marked with blood spray, eyes glittering in a way both feral and alive.

It's the eyes that haunt Sam when he wakes, still sleep-frozen and covered with sweat that makes his shirt stick and cling uncomfortably until he comes back to himself rips it off, as if showering and dressing will wash away the image, that this time it will work. Yet, it never goes away, and Dean, however innocently, keeps finding ways to remind him. It comes by way of vampire nest, neatly decapitated with only the backup pocketknife, or a demon flayed open as if his intel was carved onto his bones, or a shifter with enough holes that its heart must be in pieces if it's still there. The hours and days after, when Dean's passed through the self-loathing, there's peace in the bunker; Dean might be in the garage or the library, he cooks for himself, and Sam can almost forget that anything changed, as if the distance between them, a chasm that grows and warps even after all this time, is no longer there.

Sam can pretend they're brothers again, and that Dean would do anything for him; he can almost say he would do anything for Dean, even though Dean wouldn't believe him if he said it out loud and made it real. Dean looks almost happy, as if the depression and the weariness was just a shadow in the droop of his shoulders, written off by a temporary injury and not the soul-crushing weight that Dean carries, and Sam saw too late.

 

It's when there's no hunt, no clues, and nothing to do but rest that Dean goes back to the gym, that even the antique guns are taken apart and cleaned, that the supply room is restocked and the day trips to their more local mail drops turn into overnight benders that do nothing to wipe away Dean's pain.

Sam has learned not to interfere; he doesn't try to stop Dean, and the catalogue benefits from the time he spends on it, keeping busy just so he isn't pacing by the door, wishing that Dean hadn't left every single other car without some vital component. He doesn't comment on Dean's rages or lows; he just makes the food when Dean doesn't, makes sure there's always a full case in the pantry, and if Dean notices that they're going through and sampling every pale and golden ale from every mainland brewery with online ordering, well, he lets Sam keep his pretence that he doesn't. 

 

It's over an IPA from a boutique home operation in Massachusetts that Sam gets the idea. He dismisses it; it's just an idle thought inspired by the bleeding of red ink on the hand-made label, a stain he has to wash off his hands. 

But in his dreams the bodies on the floor are gone, and he's no longer looking at them. Dean is getting restless, and Sam knows the routine well enough by now that he's looking for big hunts, no matter how far away they are. He'll sit in the passenger seat for two days either way for a few days of peace, or he'll get it another way, because now that it's in his head he can't get rid of it; it sits there at the back of his mind, an almost physical ache that only grows as Dean becomes more restive, and the falling snow keeps the reporters away from reporting anything hunt-like. 

 

Sam just didn't expect it to start by accident; he knocks on Dean's door and within seconds, he's against the wall with a knife at his throat. It's not pressed in enough to do much, though Sam can feel the uneven pressure as he swallows, making it cut in and sting, just a bit.

"It's okay, Dean," he says; he splays his hands on the wall. He left the burgers in the kitchen rather than bring one with him, which seems a lucky choice right now. It would be on the floor otherwise, needing to be cleaned up, and instead, he can focus on Dean. He's just in a tee and sweats, so he can see Dean's muscles flexing, almost as if he's indecisive on what to do now, whether to push the blade in or slide it across, or take it away. 

"It's okay," he says again; the last time this happened, he'd chased Dean around the bunker, and it took time to build up Dean's trust in him again after that, after everything. He can't jeopardise that now, he understands; it's key to what he's been wanting, what Dean needs, and he has to trust Dean too. 

"I'm your brother, Dean. I'm Sam." Dean's eyes flicker down to the blade, then up. They don't widen in recognition, but the blade wavers and Dean's arms fall. Sam doesn't move, even though he's free; he doesn't touch his neck to see if that's blood he feels or if his imagination is tricking him, he doesn't advance or move away. "You can't hurt me, Dean. I trust you not to hurt me."

The look Dean gives, as he looks up and finally meets Sam's eyes, is reverent; his lips are parted, slightly damp, and the skin around his eyes is relaxed, missing the crinkles that are always there when Dean is worried or blaming himself for something. For a moment, even the air is still, and neither of them breathe.

"We can get through this," Sam says. Talking is the only thing he has, but breaking the stillness means Dean is moving too; Sam is on his knees, Sam's shirt is around his wrists and the blade is under his tee, a cool line traced up his back as the material is cut away. Sam wills himself to be still, to breathe without moving, but he can't stop the shivering that comes with being exposed to the unheated air and with being stripped for a reason he doesn't fully understand. 

_It's okay,_ he tells himself. _It's Dean._ But with the first cut, he becomes less sure; it's not the deep cuts he and Dean have made many times to get blood, the kind that hurt only until pressure is put on and then become annoying only when forgotten about. The first cut Dean makes is shallow, and Sam doesn't register it at first for it's more of a brush over his hipbone that's followed by a sting that Sam twists away from. By doing so, he leans into the matching cut on the other side, and he feels that; the pressure, the pain, and in his mind, he imagines his skin parting, leaving a red line so even it could have been stencilled on. It's not like that, though; Dean makes a sound that's almost disappointed, and then Sam is rolled over. Dean settles over his hips and sits on his thighs, steadying himself by spreading his knees wide. 

It's no longer the demon knife that Dean's using, with its serrated and enchanted blade; this one is matte and black, the blade is long but curved only slightly, and it's the point that Dean traces on Sam's chest. It travels along each visible crease; absurdly, Sam thinks it's Dean making a map, though he doesn't need one with Sam right under him and having been naked around him countless times over the years. It's only when Dean drops his shoulder, tilts his head, and the blade settles heavily over Sam's sternum that Sam realises that Dean's just been reminding himself of every nuance of Sam's body. Dean found the scars from the werewolf in San Francisco and that stupid drunk night in Pensacola and he reopens them first, digging in past the dense skin and finding blood. Sam bites his tongue and tastes it too, as the smell reaches him. He wishes it were metallic and coppery, but it's more like cinnamon, and he's dizzy already. He opens his mouth to breathe, as if he could dilute the blood with air taken in through dozens of shallow breaths as Dean traces his ribs as if bringing the bones to the surface. Sam finds himself relaxing, as if his body wanted to meet the blade, and he doesn't care to stop it; he's cold where the blood meets the air, slipping out through each cut Dean makes like a river being freed from the dam that held it so long, and with each new tributary Sam feels calmer, more certain, more safe. Dean isn't going so deep; the flow is slow and fades quickly, and some marks are like that first, only faintly beading as Dean's other hand presses on them, holding Sam in place for the next one.

Dean's hand is coated with Sam's blood when it touches Sam's face, enough to leave some behind. Sam flicks his tongue out to stop it leaking into his mouth and instead of licking it away, he bumps into Dean's thumb. He can taste dirt now as well, but Dean's face has that reverent, relaxed expression again; Sam lets Dean trace his lips and, when that's not enough, dip his thumb into Sam's mouth. He licks it, and then, when Dean doesn't take his hand away, he sucks on it. Dean's hand is sticky on his cheek, and his thumb tastes of dirt and grease but mostly blood, enough to get the metallic taste, but for that moment out of time, until Dean finally takes his hand away, the pain stops and the world around Sam seems to narrow just to that taste, the weight of Dean's thumb on his tongue, the stillness.

Then Dean starts again; he rolls Sam onto his stomach, where the pressure on each cut coalesces into a single source of stinging, aching pain as the carpet scratches on the remaining unbroken skin, and on his legs as Dean tugs down his pants and then his boxers. Sam surprises himself by lifting his hips without being asked, without Dean pulling him up, but settling back down is a relief even as Dean's hand and then Dean's knife slide over the skin there. Dean goes deeper there, away from internal organs, and it's a sting that settles inside Sam, pushing away everything else to make room for blessed, welcome, warmth and fog, stillness, blackness.

 

Sam wakes up alone; Dean is in the corner, the knife discarded beside him. He's curled up with his knees to his chest and his arms holding them there, head down. He doesn't look up when Sam pushes himself up onto his forearms and then his knees, not even when Sam gives in to the pain and whimpers as the skin stretches and pulls at barely-formed scabs as he moves to Dean's side.

The focus only comes back into Dean's eyes when Sam takes one hand, the hand that had held the blade, and presses it flat against his chest, as if the feel of blood on skin was the only thing that could reach through Dean's self-imposed exile from himself. 

"Don't," Sam says. "It's okay." Dean's mouth closes, his jaw twitches, but Dean doesn't say anything, not even as Sam forces himself to stand, to go to his own room to wash away the blood and find himself underneath the thing his brother found in him and brought to the surface.

He won't be putting that away, pushing it down to where those other memories hide; it won't go there when he showers and the water ignites every cut with fire, as he inspects the patterns Dean carved into him and find none of them deep enough for stitching, as he pulls all the blankets out of his cupboard and layers them on his bed as if they can make him warm again now that Dean's done with him.

It doesn't go away when he wakes up to water and panadol on the table beside him and the smell of steak coming through the door Dean left open.

 

It doesn't go away until he lets Dean replace it with a new one, and even then, it takes the place of the dreams until he sleeps through the night.


End file.
